The 36 percent price increase in canned soup at an East Bay supermarket reminded Susan Duley that grocery and fuel prices are rising, and with no clear explanation.

“Food, gasoline, clothing. Everything is getting more expensive,” Duley said recently as she left a Safeway store in San Ramon, her hometown. “It’s kind of discouraging.”

In mid-March, Duley paid $3.39 for a can of Progresso soup. That topped the $2.52 she paid for the same soup a week or two earlier.

Squeezed by rising food and fuel prices, Bay Area consumers are changing their behavior.

“Gasoline is crazy,” said Verina Mitry, a San Francisco resident. “I find myself being forced to take public transit more often. I ride a bike. When I drive, it’s all about consolidating trips.”

The rising prices could trigger an inflation spiral that would likely impede hiring and crimp spending, economists fear.

What consumers can plainly see is clear to researchers at The Billion Prices Project, which economists Roberto Rigobon and Alberto Cavallo operate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. They scan the Internet to track transactions on millions of items a day.

“We are going to get inflation,” Rigobon said. “The bill is in the mail.”

The Billion Prices Project says inflation is 3 percent higher than a year ago.

That contrasts the federal government’s yardstick, which officially estimates that inflation, measured over one year, is at 2.1 percent.

Soothed by its own assessment, the Fed has sought to rouse the economy through a program dubbed “quantitative easing.” The Federal Reserve has been printing dollars to buy U.S. Treasury notes and has kept short-term interest rates at zero.

Some economists fear that the Fed has stoked inflation. They also say the Fed has overlooked more frequent and disturbing inflation signals.

“The Fed is conducting a monetary policy that will push up inflation much more over the next few years,” said Bob Stein, senior economist with Illinois-based First Trust Advisors.

“Inflation worries us. We think the Fed is completely unprepared for the rise in inflation.”

The problem, some experts say, is that the extra greenbacks in circulation have devalued our money. In turn, devaluation has raised prices for commodities such as oil and food.

In a growing number of instances, it now takes more money to buy the same item. Dollars aren’t going as far as they did last year, or even last month. That’s inflation.

“I blame all the money printing by the Fed since September 2008,” Rigobon said. “It has reduced the value of the dollar. That pushes prices up for food, fuel and all the other things.”

Some analysts say the Federal Reserve’s money printing is the remedy that Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke prescribed to raise prices.

“Bernanke would like to have inflation,” said Donald Luskin, chief investment officer at Menlo Park-based Trend Macrolytics. “But this is very dangerous surgery, and Bernanke could slip.”

The Fed program means more money is drifting through the economy. In early March, the St. Louis Fed reported $2.35 trillion in circulation.

That’s 34 percent above the $1.75 trillion circulating when Barack Obama was sworn in as president in January 2009.

Still, the Fed’s high-risk procedures might have warded off a full-blown economic meltdown, say Rigobon and other economists.

“We had unemployment rising from 5 percent to 10 percent, but we avoided 15 or 20 percent unemployment on the scale of the Great Depression,” Rigobon said. “We avoided a bad outcome. But avoiding a bad outcome doesn’t mean we avoid paying for what we did.”

As a result, the inflation bill looms for everyone.

“Now this is trickling down to the consumer,” Rigobon said. “Now we have to pay for it with inflation.”

Evidence of inflation is hard to dismiss.

Over the one-year period that ended in February, lettuce prices have zoomed up 36 percent. Butter prices have soared 29 percent. Coffee jumped 13 percent. Several types of meat are 7 to 10 percent more costly. The cost of unleaded regular gasoline in the Bay Area rose 19 percent in 12 months, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Inflation in the 2.5 percent range might only be the start, experts warn.

“There will be 3 percent, 4 percent, 5 percent inflation,” Rigobon said. “We won’t get hyperinflation. It won’t go to 20 percent, or even 10 percent. But prices are going to be pushed higher.”

Some analysts say an average inflation rate of 3 percent will greatly pinch shoppers.

“People are going to notice the difference at the 3 percent or 4 percent level,” Rigobon said. “Inflation is a very unfair, unequal tax. People who are poor or in the middle class are hurt the most by inflation.”

“People are struggling with high debt levels and being underwater on their mortgages. They don’t have a lot of wiggle room in California for higher prices.”

The Fed’s heating up of prices could scorch family budgets statewide. In response, people may curb, or jettison, discretionary purchases such as vacations, new cars, restaurant dining and entertainment.

“You are more likely to see changes in consumer behavior in California,” Anderson said. “For many households, gasoline and food are things you can’t stop buying.”

Behavior shifts are already under way.

“We’ve seen a big increase in food prices the last six months,” said Kristin Salter, a Fremont resident. “We don’t eat out as often. We try to stretch our dollars.”

Some scour the Internet to find bargains.

“For food, I always shop during the sales,” said Mitry, the San Francisco resident. “I Google to find out when sales occur. That’s when I do all of my grocery shopping.”

People might sense a daily pummeling as prices rise.

“You’re going to feel it every time you fill up your tank, when you go to the grocery store,” Stein said.

“You’ll feel it every time you buy things you have to buy. Inflation will make you feel poorer.”

That’s not what the Fed is saying in its official statements. On March 15, it saw no imminent danger.

“Measures of underlying inflation continue to be somewhat low,” its Open Market Committee said.

The panel also stated, “The recent increases in the prices of energy and other commodities are currently putting upward pressure on inflation. The committee expects these effects to be transitory.”

The Fed touts a core inflation rate that excludes food and fuel prices. What’s more, it uses the core rate to justify its quantitative easing and other easy money policies.

Excluding food and energy, inflation rose 1.1 percent over the year that ended in February. Including those two items — arguably vital for consumers — inflation was up 2.1 percent.

One economist scoffs at the idea of leaving food and energy out of inflation calculations.

“Mr. Bernanke may be on a diet and he may have a driver and therefore might not care about food and energy,” said Joel Naroff, president of Pennsylvania-based Naroff Economic Advisors. “The reality is that the rest of us are affected by food and energy.”

The bottom line is that the specter of inflation has teamed with the ghastly job market to haunt the economy.

That could batter shopping and hiring, Anderson warned.

“Retail sales could unwind pretty quickly because of these gasoline and food prices,” he said.

Consumers may have to combat a steadily deepening erosion of buying power.

“The real risk is that prices move up enough to undermine earnings and income growth,” Anderson said. “There could be a pullback in consumer spending. That can hurt the job market.”